


[Fandom stats] GeekGirlCon 2019: Fandom insights from analyzing fanworks

by Franzeska, toastystats (destinationtoast)



Series: Fandom Stats [97]
Category: Fandom - Fandom, Game of Thrones (TV), Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Meta, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-12 20:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21482530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Franzeska/pseuds/Franzeska, https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinationtoast/pseuds/toastystats
Summary: At GeekGirlCon 2019, we were on a Fandom Research & Data Science panel.  We presented a number of insights gained from looking through fanworks.  Topics addressed include:Impact of recent events on fandom (Game of Thrones finale, Good Omens, Chinese government crackdown on slash & original M/M)How fanwork production changes over timeHow fanworks differ across different platforms
Series: Fandom Stats [97]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/60910
Comments: 42
Kudos: 169





	1. Recent trends on AO3

**Author's Note:**

> If you were at the panel and enjoyed the other presentations, please also check out [Fansplaining's fan survey results](http://fansplaining.com/projects) and University of Washington Fandom Analytics Team's [tumblr](http://ffanalytics.tumblr.com) for more info!

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/amuBHMfMCZXYvKjZA)

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/xE6XZhBThLCam5YE6)

We’re going to be sharing data we’ve found by analyzing fanwork metadata. For instance, the way the author has described or categorized their fanwork, or the way the audience has responded. Therefore, a lot of this data is highly dependent on how the author has tagged or described their works. 

We’ll be starting out talking about some recent trends on Archive of Our Own -- the fanwork archive with the best tagging system, where it’s relatively easy to gather data about what fans are up to. Later, we’ll talk about some differences between platforms. 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/EhirXzBwXWtFCn7a7)

Some of you may be aware the Game of Thrones recently ended... :) So how did fandom respond?

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/NNSqRJ15goLu9o6t6)

In May 2019, the Game of Thrones finale aired. While each previous season had caused a surge in fanwork production, Season 8 caused a spike like nothing before, and the fandom is still going strong. 

[raw data](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cSK1O32dQm_Ip8XdyZ1OIe7lVhICYDryqJg3D2vzUhY/edit?usp=sharing) (for this and other GoT analyses) 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/gJdwUQttJejmWhTH9)

What are people writing about? One thing I was curious about was how many people are creating fanworks where the story diverges substantially from what happened on TV. Turns out, there’s been a fairly steady increase in the percent of Canon Divergence works. (This graph shows the percentage of GoT works that have used this tag over time.) That's perhaps not a huge surprise; as more characters have died and other major events have happened over the course of the show, more and more authors have made at least one narrative choice that differs significantly from the show.

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/y8XjqTnLpmzRGNTe7)

...By contrast, however, there has been a huge increase since S8 in the percentage of fanworks that are specifically written to fix something in the narrative (using the "Fix-It" tag).

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/mzWQrvK8bNK4L4GZ9)

I was curious which characters are getting written about the most, and how S8 changed that. Sansa and Jon Snow have been most written about, both before and since, but the finale didn't have a huge impact on their popularity. 

Arya and Dany saw the sharpest increase in fanworks. 

Jaime, Brienne, Tyrion, and Gendry also had large gains. (Bran and Cersei were only slightly behind.) 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/jDzdqaLCgoXbrcak8)

Another event that some of you may have been aware of [I said to an audience including a lot of Ineffable Husbands cosplayers]...

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/tvpSxaiJk1WrkXJo6)

Good Omens the book was published nearly 30 years ago, and it has had a loyal fan following ever since, but that fandom has been pretty low-key in terms of fanwork production over the past bunch of years. When the TV adaptation aired in May, the fandom suddenly started producing thousands of new fanworks per month. 

[raw data](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-_6XIhtx8wlRVUTYds7pu1MxSJ1rFjtQEbzZQcHkNeg/edit#gid=1764953924) for this and other Good Omens stats 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/XXAmKHVXagVEMAtt6)

For context, this probably puts Good Omens among the top 5 most productive fandoms on AO3 since the TV show aired. (Probably because I didn't exhaustively check all fandoms, I only checked the biggest fandoms plus a few other likely candidates. So there may be some fandoms missing here.)

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/FNHLipmvNGx9aXyCA)

Not only that, but in the past few months, Aziraphale/Crowley has become one of the biggest ships of all time on AO3! 

[raw data](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DPvHVa_qOGwGhqvuWlY78fbCwyvFZzKzX-WEd0nACNY/edit#gid=0) for biggest ships 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/Tf8Q1seEikJ75M6c6)

I was also curious what characters have seen the biggest changes in popularity from book to TV fandom. A number of celestial beings have seen huge increases -- as well as a couple humans (Anathema Device and Warlock). Meanwhile, Adam and his friends ("Them") were less of a focus in the show than the book, and that is reflected in a decrease in fandom attention. 

NB: I’ve omitted a bunch of other characters where attention increased but to a lesser degree. (And I’ve left Dog in because she amuses me to use as a neutral reference point.) 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/cBfvGR9zNG6XPUba9)

[BONUS SLIDE] And what themes are people writing about? This is a partial list of common tags in the TV fandom. It's full of a ton of fluff, but also angst, hurt/comfort, and (mutual) pining. And aside from MCU, Good Omens is the fandom that most often uses the “Idiots in Love” tag.

Based on [Google Trends data](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%22ineffable%20husbands%22), I believe the hugely popular "Ineffable Husbands" tag (and phrase) has only come into common online usage since the TV show. 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/7gKeSpT1bnYG2TGM7)

There are a number of fandoms that Good Omens has a bunch of crossovers with. 

NB: An incomplete list. And “a bunch” includes some fairly low numbers here (a few dozen), as is to be expected in the early days of a growing fandom. 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/2YL8F8vSjrqmKBvW9)

I’ve noticed a few things that some of these fandoms have in common... 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/hXSCs1Xi6bfzSy5f9)

… interestingly, Untitled Goose Game does not fit any of these, but Good Omens is the most fandom that UGG most often crosses over with! :) 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/Sb4wNj1V61iB3rBa6)

Sadly, the Chinese government [recently cracked down on homoerotic fanworks and original works.](https://kotaku.com/banned-from-the-chinese-internet-lgbt-fanfiction-write-1835812630)

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/B3suoKoV6rdx1c5R8)

While large numbers of these works had previously been hosted on Chinese sites, after the ban many Chinese authors started moving their works to AO3. 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/icPWnHU7zKv1dkNC6)

If we compare Chinese works (blue) to AO3 overall (red), the Chinese fanworks are more often Explicit, Mature, or Not Rated. (Unsurprising, given that pornography is illegal in China and authors are more likely to get in trouble for such works.)

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/TZ4x4V5MrbzYueVb7)

The Chinese works are also disproportionately M/M.

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/apSP7noFTKMWLUFN7)

We also looked at the biggest fandoms where the authors have specified that the works are in Chinese (中文). Since this slide is particularly hard to read, here is the list:

  1. Real Person Fiction 
  2. 声入人心 | Super-Vocal (TV) 
  3. Marvel Cinematic Universe 
  4. 全职高手 - 蝴蝶蓝 | Quánzhí Gāoshǒu - Húdié Lán 
  5. Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling 
  6. Chinese Comedian RPF 
  7. ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 | JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken | JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure 
  8. Chinese Actor RPF 
  9. 镇魂 | Guardian (TV) 
  10. Captain America (Movies) 
  11. 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia 
  12. 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV) 
  13. Men’s Football RPF 
  14. Original Work 
  15. The Avengers (Marvel Movies) 
  16. 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù 
  17. DCU (Comics) 
  18. Thor (Movies) 
  19. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)

Of particular note -- there are about 12K fanworks for Super-Vocal, 75% of which are Chinese language. That makes it the 97th biggest fandom on AO3! So expect to see Chinese language works showing up in more analyses of top fandoms going forward. 

[raw data](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ueFeCeC2jQLjfitkOJJq1GpPep-7piWX8FXf0GMuxwc/edit#gid=0)

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/YBoCym6bj1XtHCDW9)

Among the top fandoms, we find some familiar fandoms that are also some of the most popular AO3 fandoms overall. 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/d27Q4c9HgoypNB4D6)

But (as we can see by also looking at how many of the works are Chinese vs. other languages), all the fandoms where Chinese is >50% of the fanworks refer to Chinese cultural works or Chinese celebrities.

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/5ezD3xJiDMFjHTyX8)

There are also several Western + Anime fandoms where Chinese is disproportionately represented. These include Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Men’s Football RPF (Soccer), and Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them. (Shoutout to Franzeska's favorite small fandom, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015), which has 10% Chinese fanworks on AO3!)


	2. How do fandoms change over time?

[](https://photos.app.goo.gl/W57y94dD57Dd2Zjd9)

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/vXgpzFydUfUrqnkA6)

Single films have a massive peak about a month after they premiere, then they fall off a cliff, never to regain their former glory. This example is Man From Uncle; the same pattern is seen for each of these three major ships. (And why are there those periodic peaks afterward? We'll come back to that in a few slides.)

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/japCmXj3fsNSKXFD9)

Movie franchises behave similarly. There's a big peak one month after each film premieres, then a sharp decrease. Kylux was an outlier for a while, but it eventually tapered off into a standard pattern. These graphs are typical of other movie fandoms in that the different ships with different fans nonetheless show the same posting patterns. 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/BLzcAjZRzRo6BBpa7)

TV fandoms are different. Sometimes, developments in canon will give a ship a big boost, like Root and Shaw in the final season of Person of Interest, and fandoms often taper off once the show ends, but the patterns are much less clear. 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/1SkvjmEBfATEqS5j9)

However, the overall posting patterns on AO3 are highly predictable based on the time of year. Posting goes up during common vacation and holiday times and down the next month after them. 

Holiday fanwork exchanges like Yuletide are too small to explain this effect; people are also just generally producing more fanworks during vacation times. 


	3. Differences between fanwork platforms

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/QZo3qxUcgeNLvEiRA)

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/YGJkUMdvu1VrZZ939)

We’ll be looking at differences between three major archives where a lot of fanworks are found. Before we get into statistical comparisons, here is an overview of some of the biggest differences between them. 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/AePHo3KYZGiQUXVj6)

The biggest fandoms differ substantially across platforms. 

Harry Potter is big everywhere, and so are others including Naruto, Marvel, and Star Wars. 

But Wattpad is dominated by RPF of bands (especially K-pop) and internet celebrities. AO3 also has a bunch of RPF; as noted before, FFN doesn’t allow it. 

Note that the numbers depend what tag you use on AO3 — for instance, if you include the Marvel Cinematic Universe tag, which includes a bunch of the others, then that tag is the biggest on AO3. And if you group together all Real Person Fiction, there’s slightly more of that on AO3 than Harry Potter fic. On Wattpad, specific search terms also make a big difference. But these particular Wattpad stats were gathered by sampling thousands of works and having volunteers hand-categorize them. 

[Raw data](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IlidwXXc714yD8E_LP1Xl8jTLFojfW617UweaKJyKok/edit#gid=1272333974), based on the following sources: 

[Franzi's raw data on FFN vs. AO3 genres & fandoms](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wvt7L6NII8a2nkJZopZ3-hJcaGf3NktImkDV6iLcZDY/edit?usp%3Dsharing&sa=D&ust=1573282224053000&usg=AFQjCNGKAT3nQIjD9Q5O3t_YbEBi-l7Y2g)

[Toasty's raw data on Wattpad](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18VTsAD3zYj1RUrmLCeNeut979wKo4WN6ROCnZmWBCGQ/edit#gid=1055969661), gathered with the help of many volunteers 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/zb3EC1ivWuRMFTvM8)

AO3 and FFN are mostly English language, whereas roughly half of Wattpad works are in other languages. 

[Raw data](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ugzoeVo3zCrLA-buXMJ0loPwrsBx9SwKyvBSPKbWXyU/edit#gid=704121152) for this and following analysis 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/uDitJRgBxkkQNB2T9)

The most common non-English languages on Wattpad and FFN are Spanish, French, Indonesian, and Portuguese. On AO3, Chinese and Russian are in second and third place. 

A lot of non-English languages also have fanfiction archives devoted to those languages. 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/LSCjPmqM9V8vNeN26)

Fanfiction.net is much older and has many more medium size fandoms, but when we look at only the largest fandoms, an interesting pattern emerges: Fanfiction.net has far more large anime and cartoon fandoms. 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/unG78rAJ8SeFKPZP8)

Not only does Fanfiction.net have far more of the big anime fandoms, but the total amount of fic in those fandoms dwarfs anime fic on AO3. (Yes, that gigantic spike is Naruto fandom.) 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/8dvUdxUANn5Mv5H6A)

However, anime series that premiered after 2010, when AO3 opened to the public, are just as popular or even more popular there than on fanfiction.net. (This graph shows the number of AO3 fanworks in a fandom vs. number of FFN fanworks in the same fandom, as a function of when the anime originally came out. So you can see by the number of recent lines that are 100%+ that newer anime fandoms tend to be at least as big on AO3 as on FFN.) 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/xqRx6mj3oh8phatG7)

Other media types show a subtler pattern. Look at cartoons for example: Superheroes and other speculative fiction genres are popular everywhere, but Fanfiction.net shows a markedly higher proportion of sitcoms and slice of life dramas. 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/pCdf318h1rkHnYr67)

And TV, movies, and books show differences as well. For instance, fanworks based on YA and Teen content are relatively more common on FFN.

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/jDzmgzvYwirGPdgn9)

The relative popularity of shipping categories also differs a lot between platforms.

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/DNNSZxfLhSoxbvNL7)

Not just that -- within a given fandom, the relative popularity of different ships may be very different across platforms. Here I'm comparing three large Harry Potter ships that are all non-canonical; a different one seems to be most popular on each of the platforms. However, please view the numbers for Wattpad and FFN as guesses, for reasons stated below. 

For FFN and Wattpad, I searched for various smushnames on google (with a site:wattpad.com or site:fanfiction.net restriction) and recorded the number of works. I selected the largest number out of each of the names I tried for a given ship. Still, the Wattpad and FFN numbers are dependent on the particular search terms and it might miss a bunch of relevant works. 

Searching on Wattpad directly instead of using Google yields very different and inconsistent numbers. One reason I decided to trust Google's results more than Wattpad is that I also looked at some other fandoms' ships, and got some truly bizarre results on Wattpad... in the Sherlock fandom, Wattpad's search says there is twice as much Mormor as Johnlock, for instance. Google overall seems to have more believable ratios. But the only way to get more trustworthy numbers would be to get volunteers to help hand-categorize a _much_ larger sample of fanworks, which is prohibitively time consuming. . 

Also not that the graph compares relative proportions amongst these three ships on each platform; the absolute numbers of works vary greatly by platform and particular search term. 

[Raw data](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TNRHX12ruVlVfv161FXcyTUlJiahQQMFaD6QCW2SDpY/edit?usp=sharing)

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/TbS1ZELgUUCznMkE7)

Finally, the amount and type of feedback that authors get varies a lot by fandom. Out of lightweight signs of approval like kudos or votes, AO3 kudos are by far the most commonly received. 

Note that FFN favs actually function somewhat like AO3 public bookmarks, and are probably more comparable to bookmarks than to kudos. 

Wattpad votes can be given to each chapter of a work separately, which makes them different from either any of the other metrics. 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/S2XuXZ72JEc81ev7A)

However, amongst the most popular works, Wattpad is the clear winner -- I found a single fanwork with 9M votes (this stat is taken from "After", which was adapted into a novel and a movie, so it's hardly representative; but there are a number of other Wattpad works with very large number of votes). I think this has to do with things like contests and promotions that give a lot more visibility to some works than others. 

NB: Previous graph was not a log scale; this one is. 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/5qCiZwDRErfhVPNh8)

For written out responses, OTOH, FFN tends to yield about twice as many as AO3. (I couldn't easily access the numbers for Wattpad.) 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/YvXHjwXJ49miT5ha6)

While the most popular works on Wattpad once again get more feedback than the other platforms, the difference is much smaller. 

Once again, the previous graph was not a log scale, but this one is. 

For more analyses of popularity metrics across these platforms, see my [previous AO3 work](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20569493) on the topic. 

[ ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/HyGBi6oXQJzfYKps5)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, readers, and thanks also to our awesome audience at the con! <3


End file.
